August 13, 2006
All is well here, the heat is abating, and the rains have come to save the planet of Sanctuary. On Friday I had a day that felt like the “old days,” very tired and listless, vaguely unwell. It gave me a turn and I realized that this is now a part of my life, too. . . the fear of remission suddenly ending. Ah well. I shall have to adjust. It was just a day, and yesterday I was back to feeling good again. My energy levels have been compromised a bit, but otherwise it all seems far away.
Our Kansas trip was an odyssey in the state where Charles grew up. We did a leisurely drive across, going south and west past harvested wheat fields, corn fields so dry and burned that they looked like October’s corn, and into the Flint Hills with its great rolling vistas of grass with rock coming through on the high spots. We stopped at Lawrence for the night, staying at the motel that follows the side of the river and is a space with a seemingly endless hallway with rooms only on the river side. The effect was very stark since on the non-river side there were no windows or pictures, just a blank wall. It was constructed with jogs in it, rather than curves, and Charles commented that the architect was likely a relative of the owner. In the morning we walked along the river and stopped to watch a gathering of egrets fishing below a small water fall.
It was dreadfully hot when we arrived at the cemetery in Burden, and the expected wind was blowing from the south. The grasses had grown up around most of the cemetery, but someone had mowed around the Ore graves. Perhaps the most memorable sight for me was the large number of little white grave markers with the print almost worn away by the elements. They were from the 1840’s into the late 1800’s and you could decipher that the ages were all of children. On one I could make out the epitaph, “Our dearest daughter Anne, now an angel”. On another stone it just said “Babies.” What a difficult time that must have been to live on the prairies!
We took another route home and as we drove Charles shared memories of his growing up and experiences in the various places. The whole adventure was a very fine one for both of us. Perhaps the lesson that always repeats itself is that life goes on and change is constant.
Today it rained! Everything here at Sanctuary immediately became green again and the curled dry leaves opened in relief. The sky is still full of restless clouds in differing shades of gray but I think our gift of water is complete. I did a nice “Thank you, thank you God!” dance in the woods with only Alphie looking on. I think he hoped I had discovered a rabbit or something pungent and interesting because he stopped and looked at me in surprise. 
We are closing the day preparing for a three day jaunt into Kansas, where we will visit Charles parents’ and grandparents’ graves. There, near the Oklahoma border, the people talk with a distinctive accent that is touched with a southern softening of the consonants and the south wind is constant and very hot in summer. Most of the graves have a top of very smooth concrete or marble, like a blanket over the site, and the particulars of the person beneath are written at the head of it. Where Father and Mother Ore are buried, wheat fields are just across the road, and the town is a little distance away. When Father Ore was in his ninties he had outlived most of his boyhood friends and neighbors. On our visits, he would drive Charles slowly through the cemetery and tell him that he came often because all of his friends were there and he knew that they would always be at home. 
About the rain. . . I think that once upon a time, had there been a “rainmaker” coming to Seward, I would have gone to the event, and added whatever was needed to pay the person because it would have been worth it. Or, if it were the thing being done, I would be joining the rain dancing to call up the clouds. When one is in the country, it is hard to ignore the weary courage of the plants and trees as they stand in the sun and hot wind day after day. The ground is as hard and unyielding as concrete and the growing things that started off the season with too much enthusiastic greenery above but too little root below have given up and died back. When I walked through Sanctuary this morning, I passed under the huge cottonwood tree that stands at the corner of the forty. It always rustles some leaves for me in greeting, and it remains serene in the heat and drought because its roots live below ground many feet where they remain connected to the water tables there. Most of the birds have given up their song since they no longer are defending territories, and the red wing blackbirds, grackles, and wrens have departed. Now we hear the occasional cardinal, the towhee, turtle doves and the elusive yellow warbler, with the blue jays always calling or scolding in the background. 
This afternoon I had a ganglion cyst at the base of my thumb treated because it was growing quite painful to use the hand. Our general practitioner identified it quickly, (common but harmless) and drained it right there in the office. I had become so accustomed to greater complexity that I was astonished at such efficiency. He also told me that these lumps found on either the top of the wrist, or near the base of fingers, were called “Bible” cysts because it was the practice to lay out the hand and whack it with the heaviest book at hand, usually the family Bible, in order to flatten it out and disperse the liquid within. Ah the joys of modern medicine! A tiny needle and a bit of cortisone followed by a bright blue wrap are far more appealing.